Trump Team Wins a Pennsylvania Legal Case
On Thursday the Trump campaign team won a case in the state of Pennsylvania which sought to disqualify a small number of mail-in ballots which did not meet the voter identification deadline of November 9. The ballots in question are of little consequence to Joe Biden winning the state’s electoral votes, since they were not included in the election ballot tally which gave Biden the lead by over 54,000 votes statewide.
The commonwealth court judge, Mary Hannah Leavitt, issued a ruling which said Kathy Boockvar, Pennsylvania’s Secretary of State, did not have the authority to extend the identification deadline to November 12. Boockvar argued she was following guidance provided in the state election code which gives new voters six days beyond the election to provide identification to validate their ballot. Since the ballot deadline had been extended to November 6, the ID deadline should have also been extended to the six-day provisional time frame.
Trump’s team argued the deadline should be calculated by the statutory date as it was written to pertain to November 3, which makes November 9 the cutoff date for voter identification validation. The judge agreed, although the ruling only applies to those first-time voter identities which had not been confirmed by November 9. Since those ballots were initially set aside; the case will not change the outcome of the state’s official ballot count certification.
Ann Sullivan is a contributing staff writer covering national and world news topics. She brings dedicated experience having written international and domestic news, blogs, and web content for over 20 years. She’s also a published poet and graphic designer with degrees in Business and Graphic Communications and has been a music distributor, music industry sponsorship sales director and band manager.